HALF-OPEN WINDOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 11

HALF-OPEN WINDOW.

IMPRISONED 1 MAN RELEASED.

A man had the astonishing experience in London recently of being sentenced to two years' hard labour one day and freed the next. He was George Warner, aged oS, ntter, and he pleaded guilty at the West Kent Quarter Sessions at Maidstone to breaking and entering a house at Chatham with intent to steal. . A long list of previous convictions was proved against him, including one of five years' penal servitude. The chairman (the Hon. H. A. Hannon), in passino" sentence of two years' hard labour, described the record as "deplorable." _ The next day Warner was again placed in the dock, and on the advice of Mr L. Fletcher, who prosecuted the day before, he withdrew his plea of guilty. Mr. Fletcher told the Court that Warner had been sentenced under a misapprehension. Evidence w#3 that he had trained access by further raising a window that was partly open. In law that did not constitute housebreaking, and therefore he had no evidence to offer. Under the direction of the chairman the jury then returned a verdict of not guilty, and Warner was discharged.